Dorchester (Durnovaria)
 Roman Britain |  Castles |  Prehistoric Britain |
The site where Dorchester stands has been occupied since prehistoric times, but it was the Romans who founded the town in AD 70. Dorchester was a Saxon mint in the 10th century, a hunting centre under the Normans, and a Roundhead stronghold during the Civil War of 1642-9. Two miles south-west of Dorchester is the massive earthworks of Maiden Castle, derived from the Celtic Mai Dun, the big hill. At more than 2 miles around the perimeter and with terraced ramparts rising to more than 80ft, it is the largest such fortification in Europe. Stone Age farmers occupied the site around 2000 BC.
There is evidence of a later Bronze Age ‘barrow' or funeral mound, and much later, about 300 BC, Iron Age man expanded the site into a township, fortifying it with a multiplicity of ditch and rampart defences. It was this fortress, housing some 5000 people, that the Roman 2nd Legion Augusta, under the command of the future emperor Vespasian, encountered, overwhelmed and annihilated in AD43. Despite being no match for the superior might of the Legion, it would appear that the defenders put up a stiff resistance. This may well have incensed the normally well disciplined Roman troops, for they appear to have gone wild inside the fort killing indiscriminately, women and children included. When the mass Celtic war grave was excavated in 1937 chilling remains were discovered, including a woman with hands tied behind her back and three sword slashes to the head, and a man who received ten blows to the skull. Evidence for the early occupation of Maiden Castle is derived from stone tools, flint arrowheads and human remains, excavated and now on display in the Dorset County Museum in Dorchester.
The Romans had no use for a massive hillfort like Maiden Castle, abandoned it and left it to the ravages of nature. Maumbury Rings, south of Dorchester, however, was a different matter. This is the site of a Stone Age sacred ring, adapted by the Romans as an amphitheatre, capable of seating 10000 people able to watch gladiatorial combat on a scale of the Roman Colosseum. In the Middle Ages, Maumbury was used for the equally ugly practice of bearbaiting; as late as 1767 ‘Hanging Fairs', or public executions, were held there, to the delight of crowds as large as those for the earlier gladiatorial contests.
Modern day Dorchester was founded by the Romans as Durnovaria in AD70, (perhaps derived from Durotriges, the name of the Celtic tribe who defended Maiden Castle), and its existing main roads run along the lines laid down in the 1st century. During the reign of Queen Anne, 1702/14, the beautiful tree-lined avenues known as the Walks were laid out following the lines of the old Roman walls, which encircled the town. A section of the original Roman town walls remain on view, and there is an excavated Roman house in Colliton Park, near the new County Hall, with several surviving mosaic floors, a bathroom and a covered verandah.
St Peter's Church is the sole remaining medieval church in Dorchester to have survived the devastating fire of 1613, which destroyed most of the town's medieval buildings. St Peter's is mainly 15th century, with a 13th century doorway and a 14th century Easter sepulchre; restoration was carried out in 1856 by local architect John Hicks and his young assistant Thomas Hardy, then aged 16. Hardy drew and signed the plan of the church that hangs in the south chapel. The church is mostly in Perpendicular style and has a simple but handsome tower, while in the graveyard is a statue to the local poet William Barnes, who lived in Dorchester from 1837-86, was a rector of nearby Winterborne Came and wrote verse in the local dialect. Barnes was a great friend of Thomas Hardy, who produced a telling pen portrait of the old clergyman in cloak, knee breeches and buckled shoes.
In 1685, following the Monmouth Rebellion, Judge Jeffreys held his infamous ‘Bloody Assize' in Dorchester. Here it was, as James II's Lord Chancellor, that the ‘hanging judge' sentenced 292 men to death for their part in the Duke of Monmouth's unsuccessful rebellion, culminating in the bloody disaster at Sedgemoor on July 6th 1685. After the hangings, the heads of some of the executed were impaled on church railings, and left there for several years as a warning of the penalty for treason. Judge Jeffreys is believed to have held his court in a room, which still exists, at the rear of the Antelope Hotel. In the Town Hall is the chair, in which he sat and pronounced his deadly edicts, labouring "so hardly on that occasion to reconcile the hearts of Dorsetshire families to their king". That Jeffreys was largely responsible for the outcome of the Assizes cannot be denied, that James II was the real culprit is also beyond doubt.
The Old Crown Court, in High West Street, was the scene of another notable trial in 1834, that of six of the Tolpuddle Martyrs. They were sentenced to seven years transportation to the colonies, after forming a rudimentary agricultural trade union, the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers, which in itself was legal, and for swearing unlawful oaths which was not. The men were manacled, transferred to the prison hulks at Portsmouth and thence to Australia. The Court is now a public memorial to the Martyrs, who were pardoned in 1836 after prolonged local agitation.
Grey's Bridge on the London road, carries a plate warning that any person damaging the bridge was liable to be transported for life - justice was severe in the 19th century. The 16th century Hangman's Cottage is a delightful thatched cottage close to the River Frome, and looks much as it did when its occupant was one of the busiest men in Dorchester.
The Dorset County Museum traces the county's history from the Stone Age to the 20th century. Included is a Thomas Hardy Memorial Collection, containing the novelist's manuscripts and personal possessions, housed in a reconstruction of his study at Max Gate, the house he designed and lived in from 1885 until his death there on January 11th 1928. The curious name given to his house derives from its position at a gate or toll booth, on a turnpike road operated by a man known only as 'Mac‘, and referred to in ‘The Dynasts'. A rather plain house, its delightful old English garden compensates; part of the house is open to visitors. Born in the village of Higher Bockhampton in 1840, where Hardy's Cottage can still be seen, all of his novels were set in Dorset, or South Wessex as he conceived it. Many local villages and towns took on new names in his stories - Dorchester became Casterbridge, Sherborne was Sherston, Bridport was Port Bridy and so on. As a native of Dorset, his books vividly recount the lives of rural communities in the late 19th century with poignant insight, the subject matter based on first hand knowledge, second hand anecdote and local country folk tales and legends. Truth and accuracy blended with the exaggerated high drama of a master story-teller. There are very many reminders of Thomas Hardy in and around Dorchester, especially those thinly disguised place names found in his novels. His ashes lie in Poet's Corner at Westminster Abbey, but his heart lies beside his first wife Emma, buried beneath a yew tree in Stinsford churchyard.